People with disability take control as entrepreneurs

30 June 2016

People with a disability face considerable economic and social exclusion in Australia but a new research project will look at how they are taking control and creating their own jobs by becoming entrepreneurs.

The study, involving researchers from UTS Business School and a number of partners in the disability services sector, has secured a $235,000 Linkage Grant from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

“People with a disability have a rate of entrepreneurship 50 per cent higher than the Australian average yet we know very little about their story – the barriers they have faced, the strategies they have used to overcome these barriers, the dynamics of their business enterprises and the economic and social contribution they make,” says Professor Jock Collins, one of the chief investigators on the study.

And with the rolling out of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) there is an opportunity to expand the number of people with a disability who have their own businesses.

The research project aims to contribute to that in a very real way by piloting a program to help people with a disability start their own enterprises.

“We hope to contribute to developing a process to assist a new generation of disability entrepreneurs,” says Professor Simon Darcy, the other chief investigator on the project and himself a power wheelchair user.

“People with a disability have a rateof entrepreneurship 50 per cent higherthan the Australian average yet we knowvery little about their story."

The introduction of the NDIS will fundamentally change the Australian disability policy and program landscape by replacing a welfare model with an insurance model, Professor Darcy says.

“This gives consumer choice to people with disability, rather than block funding disability service organisations,” he says. “The outcomes of this project can feed into this new environment by empowering individuals through a design thinking process to put entrepreneurship on their agenda.”

This is particularly important at a time when employment rates in the government sector – historically, the largest employer of people with disability – have declined.

“In response to the desperation that people with disability have been feeling with their restricted opportunities, some have taken control of their own lives and created their own employment,” he says.

Violet Roumeliotis, the Chief Executive of Settlement Services International (SSI), one of the partners in the research project, says research on entrepreneurship and self-employment of people with a disability in Australia is “well overdue”.

“This research will build on the work that SSI is doing through its Ignite Small Business Start-ups initiative, which supports refugees who face similar barriers in finding employment and choose to start their own small businesses,” she says.

Ross Lewis, Managing Director of Break Thru, says people with a disability often experience “the soft bigotry of low expectations”.

“As the leader of an organisation that courageously promotes the value, potential and inclusion of all people in the life of their community, I appreciate the importance of this research in shining a light on the valued role of entrepreneurship,” he says. “At a time of significant change in the disability services sector this project will provide valuable insight into this underexplored area of vocational potential.”

"People with a disabilitycan bring particular expertiseto their own business"

Entrepreneur John Little brought his background in marketing to bear on his venture Successful Resumes Australia, a business he established in the 1990s cognisant of the fact that living with muscular dystrophy would mean he would, one day, be in a wheelchair.

“I knew at the start of the business that I was getting closer to that day and I thought to myself, ‘What am I going to do when I’m 50, 60, 70? This was a really good solution – it involved writing and it involved talking to people. It was something I could do using a keyboard and a phone.

“It would prepare me for life in a wheelchair,” he said. “It also met my vision of developing a business that other people with a disability could run.”

Today, Successful Resumes has 35 licensed operators internationally, including a number of people with disability.

Mr Little is also a founding partner in a wheelchair rental business, Wheelchairs to Go, which specialises in meeting cruise ship requirements and services tourists generally.

People with a disability can bring particular expertise to their own business, he says. “What people with a disability do is they take their personal experience and use that to develop a business – because they have absolutely the best skills for that business,” he says.

“Entrepreneurship for people with a disability is really about creating your own opportunities.”

The three-year ARC study will build on work that Professor Collins has conducted in the area of refugee entrepreneurship, and that Professor Darcy has done in strategically planning for more inclusive organisational practices, including in areas such as the private vehicle modification market, mobile phone technology, the performing arts, accessible tourism and children’s sport.